Q13 - The solution to any environmental

[timmydoeslsat]

I tackled this one in following manner:

~ Govt. Mismanagement Enviro Prob ---> Major changes in CH

Major changes in CH ---> EE
________________________________
~ Few serious eco probs ---> EE


Analysis: The first statement is telling us how to derive a solution. If we know the problem did not come from the govt, the solution comes from major changes in CH.

Second statement is giving us a necessary condition that follows major changes in CH.

We have a new term in our conclusion that is not addressed in the premises, serious ecologocial problems. Look how it has a necessary condition of EE. We know that to validate this argument, we want to see how the argument ended up with EE as a necessary condition. We know it is going to be using our second premise. So we know it is going to somehow use that sufficient condition. We need to know how we can tie in this idea given in the conclusion.

This is the equivalent bare bones argument:

A --->B
B --->C
_________
E ---> C


We want [E --->A]

This is what answer choice A is giving us.

~Few serious eco probs ---> ~Govt Mismanagement

Which is the contrapositive of answer choice A.

[goriano]

I tackled this one in following manner:

~ Govt. Mismanagement Enviro Prob ---> Major changes in CH

Major changes in CH ---> EE
________________________________
~ Few serious eco probs ---> EE


Analysis: The first statement is telling us how to derive a solution. If we know the problem did not come from the govt, the solution comes from major changes in CH.

Second statement is giving us a necessary condition that follows major changes in CH.

We have a new term in our conclusion that is not addressed in the premises, serious ecologocial problems. Look how it has a necessary condition of EE. We know that to validate this argument, we want to see how the argument ended up with EE as a necessary condition. We know it is going to be using our second premise. So we know it is going to somehow use that sufficient condition. We need to know how we can tie in this idea given in the conclusion.

This is the equivalent bare bones argument:

A --->B
B --->C
_________
E ---> C


We want [E --->A]

This is what answer choice A is giving us.

~Few serious eco probs ---> ~Govt Mismanagement

Which is the contrapositive of answer choice A.

timmy- i did the exact same analysis you did and knew that the correct answer needed to be a logical equivalent of:

~few serious ecological problems --> ~government mismanagement

however, my issue is not knowing how to translate (A), which i read as

IF few serious ecological problems THEN government mismanagement, and thought it was the incorrect negation of what was needed. So I guess my real question is, why does (A) translate to IF government mismanagement THEN few serious ecological problems?

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Goriano, the issue is the very convoluted phrasing in the argument itself.

The conclusion says that if most serious ecological problems will be solved, then the solutions need to be made economically enticing. If we add the assumption that most serious ecological problems are not the result of government mismanagement to the first premise, we can infer that the solution to most serious ecological problems depends on changing consumer habits.

There's a bit of substitution there.

my issue is not knowing how to translate (A), which i read as

IF few serious ecological problems THEN government mismanagement, and thought it was the incorrect negation of what was needed

Not exactly what answer choice (A) is saying. This is not a conditional statement "if, then." Instead this is a quantified statement; "most serious ecological problems are not the result of government mismanagement."

Hope that helps!

[timmydoeslsat]

timmy- i did the exact same analysis you did and knew that the correct answer needed to be a logical equivalent of:

~few serious ecological problems --> ~government mismanagement

however, my issue is not knowing how to translate (A), which i read as

IF few serious ecological problems THEN government mismanagement, and thought it was the incorrect negation of what was needed. So I guess my real question is, why does (A) translate to IF government mismanagement THEN few serious ecological problems?

So we see the gap is ~few serious eco probs ---> ~govt misman

So this is really govt. misman ---> few serious eco probs

And this is what answer choice A can be interpreted.

Few serious eco probs are the result of govt misman. So when you have govt misman, few serious eco probs follow. Having this assumption would lead us to EE as a necessary condition for ~few serious eco probs in the conclusion.

Tell me if you are still not clear on this one.

[joseph.m.kirby]

Overall, I think this problem is especially tricky because of the way in which "few" is used. I will explain more about "few" later in this post. Here's how I diagrammed and interpreted this problem.

Diagram:

P: Solution to any environ. prob. & ~result of gov. screw up --> major change in consumer spending

P: major change in consumer spending --> change economically enticing

C: ~econ. enticing solution --> few serious ecological problems solved [most will not be solved]

(contrapositive: most ecological problems solved --> economically enticing)

Simplified:
A&B -> C
C -> D
---------
~D -> E
(~E -> D)

The gap relates to A&B and ~E.

A&B: Solution to any environment problem & not result of gov. screw up

and

~E: most ecological problems solved

(A) addresses this gap, few ecological problems are the result of government screw ups (most ecological problems are not the result of government screw-ups)

Overall, I think this question is tricky because of "few." The way "few" is used in this question can be interpreted as "Most...not."

This problem:
Few children went to the party. (Most children did not go)

Most LSAT problems:
A few children went to the party. (We know at least some children went to the party.)

[austindyoung]

@Matt Sherman- thanks for clearing up that we could translate the last sentence in the stim with making "few" into "most."

So- I think Matt cleared this one up. Just to throw my two cents in- I thought this question was a little easier, because there's a huge qualifying statement in the first sentence (paraphrase):

Any environmental problem's solution is dependent upon consumer habits- assuming that it is not due to gov.'t mismanagement.

The argument continues, and we get the conclusion (paraphrase): If most serious ecological problems can be solved then those solutions are made economically attractive.

Translating this, for me, into the common "if...then" clause we usually see made this much easier.

For this conclusion to be true, we need a sufficient assumption. I think (A) is correct because it is sufficient- and it actually is also necessary, in this case.

So, the conclusion can be true, as long as it is not a "result of gov.'t mismanagement." That's what (A) is saying (note, "few" is being used as the opposite of "most" in this case)

(C) is wrong because it is just a Necessary Assumption. This Must Be True, but it does not allow us to get to the conclusion.

At least, that's how I looked at it

[ohthatpatrick]

This thread has gotten pretty long and convoluted with lots of really good questions, but we’re going to clean it up a little by putting a complete explanation here and deleting some of the previous posts just so people won’t have to go through quite as long a journey in reading the thread.

This is a Sufficient Assumption question, which means that if we add the correct answer to the argument, the author’s conclusion becomes logically airtight.

Most Sufficient Assumption questions contain conditional logic, because conditional logic provides certainty and our goal is to reach a certain conclusion.

True to form, the first two sentences of this argument are both conditional ideas, and they chain together because they’re both talking about "major changes in consumer habits".

Let me give you an oversimplified rephrasing of the argument:

P1: Solving problems requires major changes in consumer habits.
P2: Major changes in consumer habits only happen if the change is economically enticing.

Conc: You can’t solve a problem without the solution involving an economically enticing change.

THIS is an airtight argument. Notice that all the ideas in the conclusion already appeared in the evidence.

Naturally, they can’t give us an airtight argument to start with or else we wouldn’t have a question to answer. But part of your goal in organizing the info they give you on Sufficient Assumption is to figure out the airtight argument that they WANT to make.

Now let’s add back in some of the complexity we took out:
P1: Solving PROBLEMS LIKE X requires major changes in consumer habits.
P2: (same as before) Major changes in consumer habits require economically enticing change

Conc: You can’t solve MOST SERIOUS PROBLEMS without economically enticing change

This is no longer airtight. What link needs to be made / what idea needs to be established?

The argument is trying to apply what we know about PROBLEMS LIKE X to this brand new idea in the conclusion, MOST SERIOUS PROBLEMS. In order to know that what we heard about PROBLEMS LIKE X actually pertains to MOST SERIOUS PROBLEMS, we need to hear this:

MOST SERIOUS PROBLEMS are PROBLEMS LIKE X.

Okay, what did we mean by "˜PROBLEMS LIKE X’? We meant "problems that are not the result of government mismanagement". And what did we mean by "˜MOST SERIOUS PROBLEMS’? We meant "most serious ecological problems".

So we need to hear:
"most serious ecological problems" are "problems that are not the result of government mismanagement"

That’s what the correct answer (A) says.

=====
At this point, we should clarify how "few" is meant to be interpreted on the LSAT.

"Few" is a quantity word that means "less than half". So any time you read a statement that says "Few A’s are B’s", you could rephrase that as "Most A’s are not B’s".

(As on poster pointed out, this is different from "a few", which means "several".)

It is false to say:
A few US Presidents have been women.

It is true to say:
Few US Presidents have been women. (zero is less than half)

When we read the argument’s conclusion, we can rephrase it as:
"Most serious ecological problems can’t be solved without economically enticing changes."

So when we read (A), we can rephrase that as:
"Most serious ecological problems are not the result of government mismanagement."
=====

As we now talk about some of the other answer choices, remember that Sufficient Assumption is an oddball question in LR. Normally we work Wrong to Right, and we often get to our correct answer by eliminating obviously flawed incorrect answers. But Sufficient Assumption is not about "picking the best answer up there". It’s about "solving the equation". The correct answer is something that you can know before you’ve looked at the choices! So you should invest more of you time solving for what’s missing before you look at the answer choices. Once you know what’s you need to prove the conclusion, go find it! All the other answer choices are wrong because they’re not right - i.e. they don’t create an airtight argument.

(B) There’s no way this could create an airtight argument because it never defines "few serious ecological problems" in the conclusion. I can’t prove anything about "few serious ecological problems" without defining that idea (as choice A did).

(C) Same as B. This answer sounds very much like a correct Necessary Assumption answer for this argument. (it’s technically NOT necessary to this argument, but it sounds like the typical "author has to assume what he’s talking about is even possible")

(D) Same as B and C. We haven’t defined "few serious ecological problems" so this has no chance of creating an airtight argument.

(E) This is tempting since it defines "few serious ecological problems". Let’s do the "most-not" rephrasing.

"˜Most serious ecological problems can NOT be solved by major changes in consumer habits.’

Can this help me prove the claim that
"˜Most serious ecological problems require economically enticing changes"?

No, this answer choice actually goes the wrong direction.

In order to prove the conclusion, I actually WANT to know that "˜most serious ecological problems REQUIRE changes in consumer habits’. This answer choice is giving me the opposite.

======

There are a couple cheap tricks that you can use on Sufficient Assumption to help you (they often won’t get you all the way to the correct answer, but they make quick eliminations and solid guesses quick-n-easy).

1. "New Guy in the Conclusion" - if there’s an undefined term in the conclusion, we HAVE to see it defined in the correct answer. In this conclusion, we had "few serious ecological problems". That quickly gets rid of B, C, and D as worthless answers.

2. "Mentioned Twice? Cross it out. Mentioned Once? Link it in correct answer." - things that are mentioned twice are already connected. We don’t need to hear about them in the correct answer. The correct answer needs to link things that were only mentioned once.

"major changes in consumer habits" is mentioned twice (in P1 and P2).
"economically enticing changes" is mentioned twice (in P2 and Conc).
"solution to a problem" is mentioned twice (in P1 and Conc)

Those ideas should not need to be in the correct answer, which makes C and E very dubious.

Which ideas remain in the argument that were only mentioned once?
"not the result of government mismanagement"
and
"few serious ecological problems"

And, naturally, the correct answer spells out the relation between those two.

Hope this helps.

#officialexplanation

[mitrakhanom1]

I'm still having a hard time understanding why A is the answer.

EP--> CH
CH-->EE
~EE--> EP
contrapositive ~EP--> EE

I wrote the conclusion this way because of the term "unless".

[ohthatpatrick]

You're mostly looking good there, however ...

By symbolizing the first sentence as
EP --> CH
you're lumping ALL environmental problems together.

The first sentence doesn't say that ALL environmental problems require changes in consumer habits ... only specific TYPES of environmental problems (the ones that AREN'T the result of govt. mismanagement).

That detail creep (all ep's vs. a specific subset of ep's) is ALL that (A) is patching up.

So unfortunately when we go for symbolic simplicity here, we miss the entire nuance being tested.

If I said:
All of my work friends are big fans of reggae. But you're a fan of reggae only if you have a drug habit. As a result, most of my friends have a drug habit.

What's missing:

(A) Most of my friends are work friends.

In terms of your conditional logic, I follow
EP --> CH
CH --> EE.

But I don't get how you symbolized the conclusion.

"Unless" statements can be treated as "if not".

If the solutions are NOT made econ. enticing, then few serious ecological problems will be solved.

You're symbolizing that as
~EE ---> EP.

I would read that conditional as
"If the solution is NOT econ. enticing, then environmental problems WILL be solved."

That feels like the opposite of what the conclusion is saying. It's saying if we don't make the solutions economically enticing, we're NOT gonna solve these environmental problems.

If you missed the discussion in my post earlier,
Few A are B = Most A are ~B

Let me know if questions remain.

[jewels0602]

Hi, I was just wondering how one would go about writing the conclusion out as a conditional statement; conclusion being, "As a result, few serious ecological problems will be solved unless the solutions are made economically enticing."

I was thinking few could be turned into more than few (as a way of negating the sufficient condition of an 'unless' conditions) so it's
more than few serious ecological problems solved --> solutions made economically enticing
but then it could also be
no serious ecological problems solved --> solutions made economically enticing

and last it could be
NOT few serious ecological problems solved --> solutions made economically enticing but I don't even know how to interpret that so that it makes sense within the context.

So I'm a bit confused

[ohthatpatrick]

It's definitely confusing, for several reasons.

Is it a conditional? The word 'unless' says yes but the word 'few' says no. If I say "few of my friends are descended from royalty" ... can you make a black and white conditional?

Not a good one. The fact is there's no permanent connection between 'being my friend' and 'being descended from royalty'. Sometimes my friend IS royal, sometimes not.

If you were trying to turn "few of my friends are descended from royalty" into conditional, you'd get something like
My Friend --> Probably not descended from royalty.

As we said earlier, "Few A are B" is equivalent to "Most A are ~B". So 'few of my friends are descended from royalty' is the same as 'most of my friends are NOT descended from royalty'.

Other companies out there represent most statements with a "---m-->" arrow.
"Most of my friends are not descended from royalty" would look like
My friend ---m---> not descended from royalty.

I hate this notation, but I know it works for some people. To me, it's silly. It's NOT a conditional statement. Why are we trying to force it to be one?

In the case of this question's conclusion, the "unless" makes you want to turn it into conditional. As you demonstrated, you know that "unless" is the same as "if not".

So I would first rephrase the conclusion as "if solutions aren't made economically enticing, then few ecological problems will be solved".

Solutions are NOT econ enticing --> few ecol. problems will be solved.

That's the closest thing you're gonna get to a useful, coherent conditional for the last sentence.

I would personally re-write the right side as a "most" statement.
Solutions are NOT econ enticing --> most ecol. problems will NOT be solved.

As for the three you proposed:
1. more than few serious ecological problems solved --> solutions made economically enticing
Correct!

2. no serious ecological problems solved --> solutions made economically enticing
Incorrect!

(there's no way #1 and #2 could both be right, because the trigger for #1 contradicts the trigger for #2)

You're probably misinterpreting what LSAT means by 'few'. Few means less than 50% (it could even mean zero --- it's a true statement to say "few US presidents have been female" --- it's FALSE to say "a few US presidents have been female", because "a few" means "three or so"). So negating 'few' means saying '50% or more'.

3. NOT few serious ecological problems solved --> solutions made economically enticing
Correct!
And, as you mentioned, so confusing it's useless!

Hope this helps.

#officialexplanation

[braintreeprez]

This is a very long thread, but I attacked this problem slightly differently, so I thought I'd share.
I separated out the premises and the conclusion into two separate conditional chains:

Premises: Solving EP xGM --> Change CH --> EE
Conclusion: Solving most serious EP --> EE

(where EP xGM translates to Environmental Problems not resulting from Government Mismanagement)

If I simplify the premise chain by taking out the 'intermediary step,' I can more easily compare my premises with my conclusion-- and more easily find the sufficient assumption/jump:

Premises: Solving EP xGM --> EE
Conclusion: Solving most serious EP --> EE

In order for my argument to make sense (for the two logic chains to be 'equal'), most serious environmental problems = NOT the result of government mismanagement (xGM). Hence, the sufficient assumption I need is something like, "Most serious environmental problems are not the result of government mismanagement." Answer choice A states almost exactly that: "Few serious environmental problems are the result of government mismanagement."

[lmgfh1225]

Apologies for the verbosity up-front, but I've given this problem quite a bit of thought. Coming at this from a pretty different angle:

1. Argument

P1: (Sol & Env Prob & ~Gov't Mandated) --> Changes to Cons Habits
P2: Change to Cons Habits --> Econ Enticing
--
C: ~Econ Enticing --> (Env Problem -m-> ~ Sol)

2. Cascading sufficient condition of conclusion through premises:
I viewed this problem as: if I am in the world where '~Econ Enticing' is held true (i.e. as is found in the conclusion, as the sufficient condition), how does that cascade through the premises? Specifically, taking the contrapositives in P2 and P1 and linking these statements takes me to:

~ Econ Enticing --> ~ Change to Cons Habits --> ~ (Sol & Env Prob & ~Gov't Mandated)

3. Setting up the goal:

My goal is thus to find a way to get from:
~ (Sol & Env Prob & ~Gov't Mandated) -- i.e. the resulting premises in the argument via the contrapositive chain from above.
to:
(Env Problem -m-> ~Sol) -- i.e. the necessary condition for the conclusion.

I re-phrased the 1st statement, by cascading the '~' through the & statements, as:
(~ Sol OR ~ Env Prob OR Gov't Mandated) -- (or colloquially: it must be the case that a) there is no solution, b) it is not to an environmental problem, or c) it is government mandated. ONE of these statements (or more) MUST necessarily be true.

4. Cascading sufficient condition of (Env problem -m-> ~sol) through premises:

First off, a point of clarity to clear any ambiguities. The conclusion is essentially a 'nested if' statement: ~Econ Enticing --> (Env Problem -m-> ~ Sol), where:

~Econ Enticing is the core sufficient condition (CSC)
Env Problem is the sufficient condition to the core necessary condition (SC-CNC)
~ Sol is the necessary condition to the core necessary condition (NC-CNC)

The way I thought about this was, if I assume that I am dealing with 'most environmental problems' (SC-CNC) what must absolutely take me to to the NC-CNC of '~Sol' from the premises? Remember, in the premises, I have (3) statements, (at least) one of which must be true, based off the cascading performed in step #2:

~ Sol
~ Env Prob
Gov't Mandated

I infer from 'Most environmental problems', that ~Env Prob is going to be FALSE, as a world where I am dealing with 'Most environmental problems' means that I necessarily have a single environmental problem; therefore, "~Env Prob" is a FALSE statement. I strike this one from the three options.

That means, if I assume '~Gov't Mandated', I am NECESSARILY left with ~Sol as the TRUE statement of my premises.

Thus, in a world where I assume 'Most environmental problems': to arrive at my SC-CNC + NC-CNC 'sub-conclusion' of (Env Problem -m-> ~ Sol), I can assume the NC-CNC is ~Gov't Mandated to arrive at '~Sol', which is PRECISELY what we see in Option (A).

Option (A) is diagrammed as:
Env (i.e. ecol) problem -m-> ~ Gov't Mandated

---
Key takeaways for me:
- If a conclusion is phrased as a conditional statement, may be valid to assume the sufficient condition as 'TRUE', and determine how you can link the resulting inferences from the premises with the necessary condition of the conclusion
- For nested IF statements, as is seen in the conclusion here, the same takeaway as above can be applied

Very, very tricky problem; but hopefully this is helpful as a point of clarity for all.

[hayleychen12]

Is "serious ecological problems" a subcategory of "any environmental problem"?

thx!

[LeonC641]

I want to echo the immediate-above post. It's annoying to know that the test maker actually thinks that it is a common-sense assumption that environmental problems include ecological problems.